Looking Back at 2018

Posted on Jan 11, 2019

I didn’t publish any post in 2018 and it’s not for lack of trying. I just couldn’t get myself to write something meaningful. So to start the new year, I thought it might be interesting to look back at last year, write about things where I succeeded and where I fell short.

Work

After putting whatoplay online, we started looking at how to further develop it. Then came that big technical hurdle. We’ve been using Material Design Lite, an older design library, based on Google’s Material Design principle, that’s slowly getting outdated. The new, shiny library is Material Design Components, a more robust implementation of the principles.

As the stand-in frontend developer, I had to learn MDC. It took me a couple of weeks just to get the gist of it. I had to learn webpack, get better at CSS, and improve on what little JavaScript I know. It was hard but also really fun. After months of toiling, we got a sloppy new UI running. This 2019, the goal is to finally start developing components with MDC and React.

I enjoy frontend development but as the cofounder of whatoplay, I have other tasks. 2018 made me feel inadequate. There were just so much things to take care of that I felt lost sometimes. There were even moments where I just stare into the screen blankly, not knowing where to start. As the end of the year draws closer, I found myself spacing out more. The worst part is the guilt of being unproductive that follows. It haunts you.

This January, I plan on taking a week off. Unplugging from all the responsibilities and giving me enough distance to reorganize and think of better ways to manage my time.

Books and Games

I tried reading a lot of books this year but could only finish 2.

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (100%)

Dune by Frank Herbert (100%)

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien (88%)

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky (62%)

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (10%)

Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky (10%)

The Great War for Civlisation by Robert Fisk (5%)

Joseph Fouché: Portrait of a Politician by Stefan Zweig (5%)

And the books (already bought) that I will read this year...

The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Edgedancer by Brandon Sanderson

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from Data by Charles Wheelan

You know why I had so few hours reading books? What free time I had was spent playing video games, specifically Dota 2, Civilization 6 and Divinity: Original Sin 2. For the year, I have two new games to look forward to Celeste, which I already purchased, and Gathering Storms, a Civ 6 expansion.

Neil Joseph Yamit

Cofounder and frontend developer of whatoplay. I share notes on tech, web development, music and life.